In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

N2EY wrote:

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

(Insert standard "not a lawyer" disclaimer here)

Who defines what constitutes "harmful interference"?

This isn't a minor question. There are those who would argue that hams should
just move to VHF/UHF, use satellites, etc.

(devil's advocate mode = ON)

Hams of almost a half-century ago were working 1000+ mile paths on 2 meters via
tropo scatter, so why do we *need* 75 meters for domestic QSOs?

(devil's advocate mode = OFF)


Besides, it would be a simple matter to notch out a narrow band around 49
MHz for old cordless phones, baby monitors, etc.

Except for that intermod problem, which would get to you via the
"incidental radiator"

Right, but that would be fixable by getting rid of the intermod.

Isn't that putting the onus on the manufacturer of the baby monitor?

Sure - but they could simply make new UHF baby monitors, right? And sell more
of them because the old ones are rendered useless.

This is the opening of a brave new world of wonders! Just imagine once
those pesky "regulations" (a swearword in republicanese) go away.

Just the next step in "getting the government off your back"...

Those cheap Chinese TV's will be a couple bucks cheaper once they can
get rid of that stupid RFI shielding.

The same for computer monitors. Those sissies that are worried about
monitors pooping all over international distress frequencies can go take
a hike. The need for another broadband option and the needs of the many
far outweigh the needs of a crashed pilot. Hell he or she knew the risks
when taking off for that flight.

There are people who will argue that point.

What amazes me is that there are some people that will agree with it!! 8^O

That's what I meant!

That's what I meant. And yes, there are some. They view RF differently.

So many electronic items can be made cheaper by removing those stupid
interference regulations, it is a wondrous thing. The free market rulez.

Sort of.

Consider that for many people today, "radio" below UHF almost doesn't
exist.
They have broadband internet (wired), cable TV (wired), cell phones (UHF)
satellite radio (UHF), maybe a wireless lan (UHF) etc.

It is obvious. But I'll go into that below.

Heck, conventional NTSC
TV is supposed to be replaced by digital HDTV a few years ago, etc.

Hehe, good one!

One of the problems with "economic growth" is that after a while most people
have enough "stuff" and they don't need, want, or have room for more. There was
a time when refrigerators were a growth industry. Now most new 'fridges are
sold as replacements. The Kenmore I bought in 1978 up in Palmyra, NY was still
going strong in 1999 when I sold it as part of my old house in Upper Darby, PA.
I figured it wasn't worth moving - but I bet it's still there, doing the job. I
bought a new one for this house.

Somewhere along the way, people will discover that *nothing* works
anymore tho'. ;^)

Nothing *old* works anymore. The solution will be simple: Go buy a new
one. (Made guess where).

That shouldn't matter. Buy a new unshielded device to replace the old
unshielded device. Same problems and more. There really is only so much
spectrum to use

Point is, if someone isn't using or even aware of the spectrum below, say,
70
MHz, they're not going to be very upset if it gets polluted with BPL noise.

And there you have it. Your point about people not knowing about
anything below 70 MHz is pretty good, and it appears to be engineers too.

EE is a very big field. Radio is but a tiny part of it these days. The folks
who generate and distribute electric power have a different view of the
electrical world. So do those who do computers.

I always though that one of the reasons that we have the spectrum we do
on HF is that for as much fun as it is, HF is an unruly beast of a
neighborhood. Propagation effects, sometimes the lower bands simply go
dead - which would probably be the time that BPL works best - and that
sunspot cycle waiting to rear its ugly head. Certain sections are known
for worldwide reach of relatively small signals. For us that is cool,
but for most services it is bad indeed. How many radio stations would we
have if all the stations around the world had to be on 20 meters?

The unreliability of HF is what makes it interesting for us and also why it has
been largely abandoned by other services.

TO put it another way, I wonder how many RF engineers are involved in
BPL design? My suspicion is that there are precious few. Probably very
near 100 percent digitally oriented engineers.

Bingo

Look at the history of consumer electronics since the '70s, Mike. LPs were
replaced by CDs. Beta was replaced by VHS which is being replaced by
DVD in a bunch of formats. (Remember the big old laserdiscs?) How many
generations of computers and various hardware formats have come and gone? Etc.

I have to live with the problems caused by that. When you have to
archive digital data, the disappearing machine paradigm causes us to
have to re-archive, and re-archive and re-archive. Coupled with the fact
that CD's are now considered to be extremely non-archival, it's a
nightmare, or at least almost a full time job for someone!

While old paper books remain readable for centuries.

Photographically speaking, the most archival prints are those printed
on a acid free paper, high or all rag content. Then the kicker is, the
process of washing the paper until virtually every last trace of fixer
was removed from the paper has turned out to be bad, The precipitated
silver that formes the image then has a tendency to reform into a solid
metallic silver. Better is leaving a small bit of thiosulfte from the
fixer in the picture. Initially and quickly it fades a bit, but then the
image staabilizes, and becomes as stable as the paper base. So the
improperly washed prints were the ones that we are still looking at over
150 years later.

You mean the old way was actually better than the new way? How could that be?

Still, I can pick up 40+ year old paperback books, with the cheap paper turning
brown from the acid, and still read them with present-day technology. Can the
same be said for 40+ year old computer tapes?

Our Ford would say that the benefits of new technologies outweigh the
problems.
Would also point to the new industry of retrieving data from old archives.

Phew, some job that!

Get the contract!

Our Ford had a phrase for it: "ending is better than mending"

This isn't anything new. More than 40 years ago, the major car companies
knew
that, on average,a large part of the new-car-buying public was buying a
new
car
every 2 model years. Their goal was to get it down to every year. Back
then
the
average car lasted about 7-8 years, and it was a rare one to go 100,000
miles,
but the manufacturers paradigm was that it was better that way.

And now (most) Automobiles cost so much that people have to take out
longer and longer term loans. I know people that have 7 year car loans!
This new paradigm is near it's endgame also. I note that the local car
dealerships are filled to bursting with those 35-40 thousand dollar cars.

Part of that is the perception that people "need" a certain type of car.
Today,
it's SUVs - I can't tell you how many people I know drive SUVs as
commuting/general purpose vehicles. They *never* go off a paved surface,
and
are in 4WD a couple of times a year at most, when we get a bad snowstorm.

I think part of what has happened is that as electronics have gotten more
reliable, the industry has changed to insure that people will keep buying
new
stuff. My first CD player lasted almost 20 years, and failed due to
mechanical
abuse (not by me). Its replacement plays DVDs too. Another example: The
latest
version of Windows 95 is only about 7 years old, but it is no longer
supported
by Microsoft. More and more new software won't run on it, so eventually
Win95
will simply disappear from most of the few places where it is still used.
Which
means new computers because the old ones won't run XP, etc.

Related story. My family moved when I was in second grade in 1962. At
that time, we rented one of the old Bell Telephones. I think it was made
by Western Electric?

Yep. Probably a 500 series dial phone.

And they installed and serviced it. If you had *any* problem, a nice man in
uniform came out and fixed it - free.

Any rate, it was your basic destop model in black.
THe thing gave absolutley no problem for nearly 40 years, when they
noticed that they were paying rent for it. SO they got rid of that, and
went to the phones we get these days. I think they average about a year
per phone now.

Sure. Ma Bell, for all her faults, was a regulated monopoly that focused on
*service*. Which meant building the most reliable hardware they could,
particularly for the customer environment.

One paradigm of Ma Bell was that basic service was *very* inexpensive. To have
a single phone and local service cost almost nothing. But long distance,
special services, extension phones and other stuff cost more, to subsidize the
basic service. Not any more!

Imagine if everything in your house were built like that old black 'phone....

73 de Jim, N2EY